One of the benefits of only having classes only in the afternoon is that I rarely have to set an alarm here. The only times I have to hear my phone go off at some ungodly hour are the times that I'm traveling very long distance. Or when my family forgets what the time difference is between California and Machanga. Sometimes, the hour is truly unforgivable. Feeling my phone vibrate at 3:17 in the morning is never permissible (you know who you are). 6:30 is more reasonable. That was how this last full week of May began: with a phone call from my parents. I feel like it had been longer than usual since I heard from them. It probably wasn't any longer than usual. Regardless, it was nice to talk to them for a little bit.
I was alone for the first half of Sunday. Richie woke up early and started heading back to Machanga. I had some work to do, so I figured it would be best to get it done before he got back. Correcting exams, usually a hassle, flew by. They are awfully easy to correct when it's only ten questions multiple choice. It took me maybe 40 minutes to get through 100 exams. As long as I was in the mood for work, I might as well pop the grades into my computer.
Richie made it home around 1:00 which worked out quite nicely. I managed to hold off lunch until then. It wouldn't have been the biggest of inconveniences for him if he had to cook for himself, but that doesn't make sense on a lot of levels, especially when I can just wait an hour. After the travel day, Richie said he “needed a win”, so we made omelets.
Given that I was up earlier than I expected, and I worked for a good chunk of the morning, I knew I would be in for a nap during the afternoon. I also knew that I would have to be careful to not over-nap. I love to sleep as much as the next person, but if I sleep too much in the afternoon, I won't be able to sleep at all when I'm supposed to sleep. Thirty minutes wouldn't be enough and an hour might be too much, so I split the difference.
The forty-five minute nap was perfect. I woke up a little groggy, but I was sure I wouldn't be rolling around in bed all night. Richie and I both wanted to get moving a bit, so we headed to the market late in the afternoon on the hunt for food. We didn't find anything promising. Another failed market run; another night of spaghetti for me.
A couple weeks ago, Richie picked up “Forrest Gump” from a colleague. He wanted to watch it tonight. Little did he know that he was putting on quite possibly my favorite movie. We were interrupted briefly by a phone call from my brother, but it was a welcome phone call. I hadn't spoken to my brother in what felt like forever. Following the brief intermission, we finished up the movie. I always shed a tear or two when Forrest talks to Jenny's grave underneath the big oak tree. I warned Richie. On cue, a single tear came out. Names were called, as expected. Nice to know I can count on some things in Machanga.
Our energy went out around 9:15. I don't want to jinx anything, but this is possibly the last week that someone will be turning the lights out for us. Let's hope so. When they said we'd have energy in June, we thought it would be June of 2009. We're hoping for the best, but expecting the very worst.
The weather was absolutely perfect as we went to bed, but the temperature dropped precipitously over the course of the night. I woke up once and definitely felt cold, but it wasn't cold enough to drag me out of bed. Around 5, I woke up again having to go to the bathroom, and this time I was cold. Cold enough to put on sweatpants and a t-shirt for a couple more hours of sleep. I didn't believe it would get cold last year, and I'm still a little incredulous, but god it's nice.
The sweatpants stayed for most of the morning, until I realized that we desperately needed a market run. As I am the one with Monday's off, the responsibility fell to me. We can get away with a lot of things here, but there's no way I can get away with wearing sweatpants to the market. I threw on some more appropriate gear and made the rounds. While I was out, Richie started lunch. The timing worked out perfectly. I got back with fresh bread just as the eggs were going into the pan.
My day to that point was fairly successful, and my string of successes continued into the afternoon. I got the dishes done. Even though Sozinho should be the person doing this, I know that if I don't do them, we won't have dry dishes until 6:45 or 7 at night, and neither Richie nor I have any interest in eating dinner at 8:00. So earlier dinner will be good.
My good fortune ended there. I tried to nap but utterly failed. I really had no reason to nap. I wasn't tired and I got plenty of sleep last night; this was just greedy. I failed at a couple kakuros – nothing new there. I spent some time reading about the utter failure of my beloved San Jose Sharks. Way to get swept, idiots.
But my biggest failure of all was yet to come. Our small pan has been in dire need of a new handle and I thought today would be the day. I got a sharp a knife and a decently sized branch and started whittling. I had the thing shaped perfectly, but as I tried to thread the screw through, it broke. Argh! If nothing else, it killed off most of the afternoon, so I guess it wasn't a complete failure.
We needed a win. More specifically, I needed a win – and stir fry usually is a point that we can count on. We had some bell pepper remaining from Richie's trip which goes a long way in our food. And with delicious Kikkoman soy sauce, we were happy.
For our entertainment, we watched “Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs”. It's a cartoon, so I was expecting something on the mediocre end, but cartoons/animation are good these days. “Up” got rave reviews (really want to see it...) so this couldn't be that terrible. It started out a little on the slow side, but it was funny in a stupid kind of way. Our lights went out just after nine, a little on the early side these days, but whatever. It makes no difference to us.
I didn't wait until I was cold to go to sweatpants. I went to bed prepared tonight. I was quite satisfied when I woke up in the middle of the night and I was cold, but not shivering. This is how I like to sleep.
Tuesday was a very easy day all the way around. With only exams to hand back in the afternoon, I didn't have to lesson plan for the afternoon. What I needed to do in a huge way was clean my room. In such a small room, things can get out of hand very quickly. If just one or two things is out of place, then everything gets cluttered. My parents would be quick to say that I never had the cleanest room in the world, but damnit I'm trying here. The upside of having a small room is that it's very easy to clean. I was done in less than an hour.
I was done with my school obligations – I can't even call it “class” – in 20 minutes today. I should have had to wait an 40 minutes in between seeing my classes, but I was able to sneak into my second class before the other teacher could show up, saving me a solid hour.
The rest of the afternoon was very quiet. We wanted to do beans tonight, so we got the charcoal going early. Outside of that, we just lounged around the patio, figuring out how many days until we get to go home. How do we get to do that? We got our official Close of Service dates this afternoon. It's exciting to know that after nearly eighteen months in Machanga, there is a final date to this madness.
When the energy came on, my computer “expertise” was needed. Someone needed some documents saved on a flash drive and printed. I'm pretty sure that anyone over the age of seven in America could do this, but it's still a bit of a task here. Whatever. The whole thing took thirty seconds and I was back to cooking rice and beans.
I'm sure that some of you readers may be mocking my love for rice and beans. But the truth is it is fuckin delicious. It's highly nutritious – a great source of fiber and protein – and easy on a budget. And since Richie doesn't eat that much rice, I'm usually very full by the end of the meal. Today, Richie failed to make it half way through his plate, and guess who gets all that food. He said he wasn't feeling well, so he turned in, leaving me to entertain myself with Spider Solitaire
It was a truly beautiful night for sleep, and by beautiful, I mean absolutely freezing. I'm not quite at the point where sweatpants and long sleeves are required, but it's getting close to that time. I can't wait. With such lovely weather, it is so easy to sleep through the night.
For a day that doesn't require me to do anything until 4 in the afternoon, I had a very busy day. While Sozinho was out buying charcoal, I helped clean the house. Upon his return, I ran to the market to buy some items for the house. And following that, I planned my lesson for the afternoon, a conversation about laws and rules.
The best moment of the morning, however, came at the very end of the morning, while we were cooking lunch. Sozinho was ironing in the house. Now, ironing here is almost exactly as it is in America, except with one big difference: instead of plugging the iron into a wall for heat, charcoal is used. It's fascinating to watch and I will not iron my clothes here because I know I will fuck up everything. Anyways, Sozinho was ironing in the house and our neighbor came over and asked if he was finished. Sozinho said, “Yea, I'm done”. I heard him rummaging around the house, so I said to our neighbor “esta a mentir” – “he's lying”. I said it half-jokingly but with near certainty. Richie than looked in the house and, what do you know, Sozinho is still ironing. “You're not making my life easy”, Sozinho told me. I was thinking that I was just returning the favor.
Richie and I ran over to the district education building in the afternoon to print some documents. I would normally print documents here at school, but both of the printers here are busted. I've tried to repair them, but it appears to be a lost cause. Documents printed, we returned home in time for Richie to yell at his students about cheating.
My class today went amazingly well. The students were actually participating. More than that, they were making an effort to participate in English. This was truly shocking. After the first period ended, I wanted to continue into the second period – the last period of the day. A lot of students in the class, however, wanted to leave. And with reason: most of the students in that class live in Mambone and with the sun going down earlier and earlier these days, it is almost impossible to get across the river before sunset. So for the first time in 18 months, I gave homework: one paragraph, in English, about any rule or law. They probably think it's a joke, but I'm not fucking around. I'm sure a lot of them will not be doing it, and I will be taking points off their exam.
While I was in the classroom, Richie bought fish, leaving me to eat spaghetti. Still pissed off about a lot of his students cheating – he caught eight in one class alone – Richie wanted to see people die. That left us with watching “The Last Samurai”. Pretty sweet movie, and it definitely quenched Richie's thirst to see blood.
Under normal circumstances, a midnight text message from America would be unacceptable. But these were not normal circumstances: my brother's first child, my first niece, was born just after midnight Mozambique time. It was a text message I was very happy to receive. It's strange how things can happen sometimes: within ten days of each other, I lost a family member and gained a family member. If you believe in circle-of-life or reincarnation or whatever, this all makes a lot of sense. To me, it;s just very strange.
I was up, once more around 5 o'clock, before finally rolling out of bed around 8 in the morning. It's awfully hard to find the motivation to get out of bed these days. It's so cold outside, I have no responsibilities in the morning, and even in an uncomfortable bed, being wrapped up in a blanket is quite lovely. Eventually, I found the motivation. Rather, I think I had to pee.
Once I was up, though, I was out and about. I made a bread run while Richie finished up his classes for the week. The rest of the morning was spent relaxing, watching electricians work on the houses. By the time I went to class, a couple of the houses here were hooked up to 24-hour energy. For real. No joke this time. Our house, however, wasn't. “They will get there”, our pedagogical director said with a smile. “No they won't”, I joked back. I was hoping I would be wrong.
I wasn't. All afternoon, they worked on a single row of houses, leaving the other half for another day. Whether that day would be tomorrow is anyone's guess, but we have high hopes. If they could get this much done in one day, they should easily be able to finish tomorrow.
I only found out that our house wouldn't be hooked up on my way back from the market. I left for the market around 4:30, hoping that they electricians would have our house hooked up by 5:30. That dream was ruined, however, when Richie and a colleague walked up to me as I was leaving the villa. We weren't getting energy, but we were going to drink. Okay.
Four of us sat around a table and proceeded to knock out a case of beer in a couple hours. With the cold weather here, it's a perfect time for dark beer. Perfect enough to drink twelve of them, apparently. Sufficiently drunk, we came back to the house to cook up some beef stir fry. If we weren't drunk, it would have probably been terrible. Our altered state made us think otherwise.
The energy went out, on our row of houses anyway, around 9:30. If we're lucky, it will be the last time the lights go out on us.
When we woke up Friday morning, there was no sign of an electrician. I don't mean that the electrician wasn't at our house. I mean that the electrician was not anywhere to be found in school. This was just slightly concerning. I figured that if we didn't get energy on Friday, we'd have to wait until Monday or Tuesday or October to get it. I wasn't holding my breath.
Trying to not thinking about the lack of electricity in our house, I kept my mind busy. I had some surprising success with Kakuro, I cleaned up around the house, and lesson-planned for the afternoon classes. By the time I got through all of that, it was time to cook lunch. Just another day of cooking on charcoal.
If nothing else, I was really hoping that we would have energy when I got back from class. The electrician finally made an appearance and there wasn't a ton of work to do. But after three full hours of teaching, with no break, there was no energy in our house. I was officially pissed off.
Then, out of nowhere, two more electricians showed up and started getting work done. There was no messing around. They sure as hell didn't want to work on Saturday. This was a job that needed to be done. And they barely got it done. At 4:37 PM Mozambique time, on May 28, 2010, Machanga finally saw the light. Our house was lit up.
The question then became, “Well, what do we do now?” We turned off the lights and went for a walk. We didn't have a whole lot of food in the house, so a market run was necessary. There was no other way to welcome in 24-hour energy than with a pasta dinner. For our entertainment, we watched “The Game”. The funny thing is, by the time we got through the movie, we were ready to go to bed. It was 9:45. We're pathetic.
How did I celebrate the first weekend of full time energy? By going to Vilanculos, naturally. It had been a while that I'd come to Vil, but I was in need of a lot of things. We need oil for the house, I needed pizza for my belly, and my computer was in dire need of some updating. Oh yea, and I was flat broke. Thank goodness for payday.
I crossed the river just after 7:00. The travel day started ominously. Fog sat on the river reducing visibility to zero, to the point that no one on the other side of the river could see that there were eight people waiting to cross to Mambone. After crossing the river, things improved dramatically. I was about to crawl into a chapa when a truck rolled by. I asked where he was going, and he said he was staying local, “but there's a car at a restaurant about to go to Maxixe”. Bingo. I walked a kilometer down the road to the restaurant and, as promised, there was the car.
As I stood at the restaurant, I remembered words commonly uttered by my grandfather: you don't ask, you don't get. I walked over to the man, who was finishing his breakfast (and his breakfast beer) and asked if he was heading to Maxixe. When he said yes, I asked for a ride, and he said of course. Immediately after I asked, another guy – who apparently had been there for a while – asked if he could also get a ride. “Nope. Only room for one”. The second man who asked looked like a beaten dog, tail between his legs. Should have asked first.
Aside from the thirty minutes spent fucking around Mambone, the ride was awesome. He didn't stop for anything or anyone. The man went 120 kilometers per hour the entire way down. I didn't have to pay. And then, as if the first part of the ride weren't good enough, I got another free ride from the crossroads to Vilanculos. The entire trip, including the ten-Metical boat ride, cost me ten Meticais. The only tally in the loss column was I didn't break the record: despite the lost thirty minutes in Mambone, I still got to town in four hours in six minutes, my second fastest time.
The afternoon in Vilanculos was lovely as usual. Some other Volunteers from around the area were in town, so some of us got pizza. I tried to run to the supermarkets, but nothing was open. Shame. I'll try again on Monday morning before I get out of here.
The evening was when the real show began. The other Volunteers bought a couple of chickens to celebrate a birthday, and we we're going to cook them up well. We made some delicious rubs for roasting. Some vegetables got steamed while others got thrown in with the chickens. Three hours after we started cooking, everything was finished. I say this without exaggeration: this was the best meal I've had in this country, probably the best meal I've had in the last five years. It was absolutely amazing.
The rest of the night was spent in alcohol-induced joy. We sat around for nearly six hours discussing everything from how good the food was to what happens to running backs when they hit thirty to the best movie trilogies.
Don't get me wrong, 24-hour energy is great. But it doesn't beat out good food, good friends, and good conversation.
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